Lori Drew Played Mean Girls…and Found Out She was an Adult

I’ve read the legal worries about the conviction of Lori Drew. I’ve read techie concerns that argue free speech in cyberspace is now on a slippery slope. I can understand how the Law was unprepared to consider such an odious event. Ordinary people cannot be expected to imagine the extremes an individual might go to, as Drew did, to harm a child. Missouri outlawed Drew’s behavior after the fact.

Nationwide, ordinary citizens using ordinary English had no problem naming what was wrong with Drew’s deeds. She stalked, harassed, conspired against, and harmed a child. Drew created a fake persona on MySpace and lured an unsuspecting 13 year-old girl to heartache. Drew, her own daughter, and an 18 year-old employee of Drew strung Megan Meier along leading the girl to believe she had found love with a hunky boy named Josh Evans. Drew orchestrated a month long deception ending with the fictitious “Josh” dumping Megan in these words,

Everybody in O’Fallon knows how you are. You are a bad person and everybody hates you. Have a shitty rest of your life. The world would be a better place without you.”

Megan might have believed it because the 13 year-old killed herself two days after the messages from Drew took a hateful tone.

The cruelty reads like a plot from Mean Girls, Mean Girls on Steroids of Evil, except the 49 year-old Lori Drew is no girl.

Lori Drew was the adult, the parent. Parents are supposed to be trustworthy–the ultimate mentors. Megan was a child and certainly no match for Drew’s scheme. There are so many responsible steps Drew could have taken, the ordinary things that parents do every day like talking to other parents, talking their own children through angles of conflict resolution. Instead Drew dealt with issues by sneaking, lying, being hurtful, and harassing.

Suicides are rarely deemed newsworthy, but Lori Drew’s role in the last days of Megan Meier prompted national outrage.

When Missouri failed to find a crime, the feds stepped in:

I cannot say it’s satisfying that Lori Drew has been found guilty of criminal hacking for violating the TOS agreement of MySpace. It is satisfying however that this particular adult has been held accountable for how she treated a child.

Hey, HG. I kept thinking while I was writing this…is there anything that could ever persuade me to this type of cruelty. And the answer came up all resounding nos. It’s hard enough being an adolescent, and there’s no reason to play evil charades ever. 13 year olds are especially complicated hurdling the girl to woman threshold. Drew should have spent the time buying and reading parenting manuals instead of stalking a girl on myspace.

I think it would have been more difficult to come down hard if a dispute was between two teens squabbling on the internet. But to have an adult harass and conspire to harass a child to the point of suicide is not acceptable. Even if the child had not killed herself, an adult stalker of a child is still not acceptable. Adults are now arrested for trying to proposition underage girls for sex on the internet – even if the cat is not accomplished. Yet, this adult could legally harass an underage child until she died, yet somehow, people thought she had no responsibility in the teenager’s death. According to one website, she even stated ‘I’m not the one that pulled the trigger.’ Excuse me madame adult. In the matter of a 13 year old girl who relies on adults to support her through hormone fueled hell, you manufactured the gun, placed it in her hand and then told her to shoot. Adult vs child means that you did pull the trigger.

I once had an internet stalker who lied on me, ruined my public reputation, and harassed me every chance she got. She continued this mean spirited drive even after she knew I’d had surgery and was doing poorly. When I complained to administrators about her stalking, libeling, hounding me – I was told to get over it. We have got to be more serious about internet stalking, harassment and verbal/written assaults. Don’t get me wrong – I’m not talking about comments, disagreements or even flaming. I’m talking about focused and continual attacks that are designed to cause emotional, psychological and sometimes physical harm.

Stalking, harassment, and harm are the things that seem indisputable to me. The fact that Drew enlisted her own child and employee smacks of a conspiratorial angle. I don’t see how Drew perpetrating this online should make a difference. It’s bizarre that they got her on violations of the “Terms of Service” agreement.

wish people would read the facts in this case. Ashley Grills testified that virtually all of the messages to Megan were her portrayl of Josh, the idea of a Josh was hers as well,. Where are the voices taking Tina Meier to task for failing her daughter. You all seem to forget if Tina does her job as a parent Megan is not engaging a 16 year old phony Josh over the net. She was a medicated and depressed child of 13, never should have had a myspace profile. If she does not maybe she’s still alive, but only maybe.

Lori Drew’s case is about cyberbullying, which is behavior for which society has little tolerance. Cyberbullying is poison for anyone it touches. An institution like Myspace — or a library or a school, which provides patrons, students or guests access to the Internet — has plentiful incentive to stamp out cyberbullying within its system and its PCs. –Ben